Link Banana

Hyatt Hotels has started to give away seemingly random goodies — a free massage or night’s stay — to guests. The goal of the generosity is to inspire gratitude in the guests which psychologists expect will inspire greater loyalty than traditional points-based loyalty programs.

If a favor seems to be a function of the free will (as opposed to company rules), “you have more desire to reciprocate,” Palmatier says. Hyatt’s strategy of relying on the discretion of on-the-ground employees to provide “acts of generosity” is a pretty fair approximation of the gratitude-creation situation Palmatier says he thinks can pay off.

It’s an old link to an even older story, but I found Ivan Krstić’s telling of the shenanigans that surronded Volkwagon stock last year rather captivating.

(via @fakelvis)

Paul Collins decides that Amazon.com’s conspicuously uncharitable ways are not without philosophical merit — and left-leaning defenders — but finds the company’s reluctance to defend them disappointing.

His actual beef with the company — one with which I sympathize — is that it’s still fighting against collecting state-mandated sales taxes.

You’ve probably seen this set from The Big Picture by now, but that’s never stopped me before.

I enjoyed this remarkably complete — Super Mario Soda, anyone? — compilation of the varieties of branded sodas no longer being produced.

(via BuzzFeed)

Finally got around to reading Michael Idov’s tale of trying to run a charming, comforting, and quirk neighborhood coffee shop. His advice in a single word: don’t.

(via Jack Shedd)

An interesting fact: The LA Times’s online advertising revenue is now sufficient to fund its entire editorial operation — both print and online.

It’s also worth noting, as Mr. Jarvis does, that the Times newsroom is nearly half the size of its former self.

(via PSFK)

If he sells every day, Jason Sadler will have made at least $66,795 — he’s selling ad spots on the calendar pages, which would add $18,000 — and probably will have received around 300 free tshirts (don’t forget repeat buyers) in 2009. I wonder if he’ll end up forced to wear a hair shirt…

(via Adii)

Also, there are ripoffs. And a parody. (via LAT)

David Brooks’s Sidney Awards — for the best long-form magazine journalism — are one of the reasons I started this site last year. The 2008 results are solid, if a little too focused for my liking.

I’ve always been curious about the operation of hedge funds, which are almost by nature obscure from public view. Donald MacKenzie’s piece in the last London Review offers a better primer than I’ve found elsewhere. For example, there’s this tidbit about the first hedge fund’s basic strategy:

By adding modest borrowing to, let’s say, $100,000 of investors’ money, Jones might buy $110,000 worth of the shares in companies he liked, while simultaneously short selling $40,000 of shares he thought might do badly. He was thus partially insulated (‘hedged’) against overall market movements. If the overall market fell, the shares he had bought (his ‘long positions’, in market terminology) would lose money, but his short positions would gain because buying back borrowed shares would now be cheaper.

I was convinced some time ago, but for those who weren’t there’s new evidence that even the stingiest microlenders have a positive effect:

ZaFinCo was no dewy-eyed social business, but a hard-nosed, profit-minded company, charging 11.75 per cent per month on a four-month loan, or 200 per cent APR, much more than Compartamos was generally judged to have been charging.

Despite the high rates, the results were astonishing. “We expected to see some good effects and some bad,” explained Karlan, who checked in with the experiment’s participants six to 12 months after they had filed their initial loan applications. “But we basically only saw good effects.”

Most strikingly, those “treated” by the experiment - that is, those for whom the computer requested a second chance at a loan - were much more likely to have kept their jobs than the control group. They were also much less likely to have dropped below the poverty line or to have gone hungry. All these outcomes were recorded well after the loan had been taken out and (usually) repaid, so this was not measuring a temporary debt-funded binge.

(via MR)

You can read it as either a sign that NBC is desperate, or that they’re the boldest network in adapting to a changing media climate, but report are that they’re going to give the last hour of weekday primetime (10 on the coasts, 9 in the middle) to Jay Leno.

(via DF)

Over the last 24 hours, I’ve wasted at least two staring at pictures of tech offices around the world. Perhaps I have a problem… There’s also the related Home Office Snapshots that I’m doing my best to resist.

Also: the left and right arrow keys save you from having to make thousands of mouse clicks.

(via Bill Israel)

Perhaps that’s a little over-dramatic, but this is a story that just makes you want to yell, “WHAT THE FUCK!?” An unidentified Walmart employee was killed in Long Island when trampled by a crowd of consumers who had broken the door off its hinges to get inside.

I’m not quite sure what to say. Though I don’t agree with Marco Arment on everything he has to say about the event, I think he captures some of what I’m thinking.

Not sure why, but I was rather fascinated by Brendan Koerner’s chronicle of the history of Zima, which finally ceased production a few months ago. It’s an interesting story in the way corporations try to work brands and the invention of beers marketed as non-beers.

There’s no doubt in my mind that this doesn’t capture everyone, but this seems like a reasonable explanation of most of the opposition to the auto industry bailout:

Most Americans simply no longer identify with the domestic auto industry (or with the states of Michigan and Ohio). To the Southerners who now make up the core constituency of the Republican Party, it’s a bunch of coddled, unionized workers trying to get handouts that the South’s auto industry (Toyota, Hyundai, Nissan, Mercedes, BMW …) doesn’t need. To the coastal urbanites and suburbanites who now make up the core constituency of the Democratic Party, it’s an industry that makes crappy big cars and fights against higher fuel efficiency standards. And to the business press it’s the worst thing of all: a trio of companies that are neither exciting nor financially successful.

(via Passport)

My fake restaurants never got trashed (yet loved) by a reviewer on the internet. I feel unloved.

(via BuzzFeed)

Hypothetical question: You’re heartsick about global warming, so you’ve just paid $25,000 to put a solar system on the roof of your home. How do you respond to news that it was manufactured with a chemical that is 17,000 times stronger than carbon dioxide as a cause of global warming?

I’d probably say, “Really!? Wow. That sucks. Is there any replacement.” To which the article says nothing.

(via Ideas)

These bits always interesting me. For example, I had no idea that the iPod name came from 2001. (Assuming I’m willing to trust CIO magazine.)

From the department of absurd comparisons comes this:

The odds of landing a part-time job at department store operator Bealls Outlet Stores Inc. this holiday season are slimmer than getting into Harvard: It’s one out of every 45.

Don’t think the chances are any better at 7-Eleven. One California store received more than 100 applicants in a week and a half for jobs that pay $8.50 per hour - and the retailer doesn’t even usually hire holiday workers.

(via Tomorrow Museum)